The odds of Donald Trump’s criminal trial starting on time just went up

In spite of the endless ratings-driven doomsday hysteria about how Donald Trump was going to be able to magically push his criminal trials past the 2024 election, there was never really any scenario where that would happen. What the media keeps referring to as “delays” aren’t actually delays. A trial is initially scheduled for several months out so that there’s plenty of time for all of the pretrial proceedings and appeals to play out. When a straight shooter like Judge Tanya Chutkan set Trump’s criminal trial for March 2024, it was always likely to happen on or around that timeframe.

Sure enough, even though Trump filed nonsense appeals claiming he has presidential immunity, the courts are working at a swift pace to resolve this stuff before the scheduled trial date. The U.S. Court of Appeals is wasting no time, and held a hearing this week. Even if Trump had gone into this hearing with the best of legal arguments, he still likely would have swiftly lost. Instead he went into the hearing with legal arguments he got off the back of a Happy Meal, and he bombed.

The Court of Appeals will rule against Trump within days. And because Trump made such a mess of things, the Supreme Court will probably then just refuse to take up the case while stifling a laugh. This Supreme Court has consistently shown that it cares more about preserving its own agenda than about protecting Trump. And after how badly Trump screwed up the case this week, this Supreme Court likely won’t want to touch it with a ten foot pole.

I’ve said all along that I expected this trial to start roughly on time. Now legal expert Norm Eisen agrees, saying that this week’s events have “increased the likelihood of the trial starting up again soon.” I would argue that those odds were always close to 100%, both because Trump doesn’t have a magic delay wand, and because he was always going to stupidly blow whatever remote shot he did have at delaying things.

But the larger point is that this criminal trial is going to happen roughly when it’s supposed to. Donald Trump is a going to be a convicted felon on his way to prison before the general election. If the Republicans still want to nominate him under those non-viable conditions, then so be it. That’ll be their problem. Trump is going to prison.